


Don't Trip Off the Glitz

by connnorwalsh



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, M/M, so there's a lot of that lmao, son this is gonna get sex-u-al (eventually), this fic exists so that i can dress alec up in androgynous clothing and have him wear eye make up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connnorwalsh/pseuds/connnorwalsh
Summary: Alec is a law student at college, shares a flat with his sister and also (no big deal) secretly works part-time as a stripper. Everything is fine and dandy - his biggest issue is hiding all the skintight leather clothing and mascara from Izzy - when he gets hired to dance at a party for one Magnus Bane.





	Don't Trip Off the Glitz

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a shitpost back when I was @stripperalec on tumblr and my good lesbian Saara was @virginalec. I wrote this about our urls combined:  
> "alec lightwood, a young stripper, has never had sex in his life. until he meets a bejeweled, nearly magical customer who quickly becomes his favourite, but never, to alec’s disappointment, pays for them to visit the back room. will alec ever lose his virginity? and will that mean he’ll also lose what little innocence he has left? and, most important of all, will magnus tip him with confetti?"
> 
> It was just a joke, guys!!! And yet, here we are... enjoy? I guess??

Tonight is the first time he’s ever worn lace. Maybe, when he was really little, he could’ve gotten his hands on something like lace gloves or drapes or… something, but it’s in no way the same as  _ this _ . That much is clear, as he pulls the netted and intricately flower-patterned fabric up to cover his legs. Looking down, he thinks it looks quite good, really. Definitely sexy - maybe not so much on  _ him _ specifically as on anybody. That thought manages to sidetrack Alec’s thoughts, having him stand in the bathroom mentally listing guys he wouldn’t mind seeing dressed in lace pantyhose. As he passes guy number twelve, he forces himself out of it, knowing he doesn’t have time for daydreaming. Much like he never has, honestly.

Pleased with how the tights look on him, and pleased to have figured out which way is the proper way to wear them without having to make a  _ very _ awkward phone call to his sister, Alec pulls on a pair of thin pleather shorts that barely even  _ have _ legs. On top of those, a pair of perfectly ordinary-looking black jeans and, buttoning up his shirt to hide the mesh fabric underneath it, he’s ready. Or at least as ready as he ever will be for dancing half-naked in front of a viciously drunk bachelorette party.

During the cab ride, he tries not to plan ahead - tries not to imagine what this gig will be like, what type of girls will be there, how old they are or what they’ll talk to him about. He prefers to take these moments to switch over from himself to his working self. This way, it makes more sense at the job, because  _ Alec Lightwood _ , dedicated student at NYU with an incredibly influential family and quite a reputation to uphold, would never moonlight as an erotic dancer. Well,  _ almost _ never, but either way, he likes to keep his second job separate from his “real” life. So it was pleasing to him when he initially found out that it was more than regular for people in his line of work to use a “stage name”. Only after having gathered the, to him, required amount of research, he selected the exotic and historically enticing name Artemis. He figured he wouldn’t have to deal with especially many jokes regarding it, except for comments he gets every now and then proposing that it’s “sort of girly, right?”. He - not Alec, but  _ Artemis _ \- has a fairly skilled way with conversations with customers, and it’s always easy to flip anything that may have meant to sound insulting at first, to turn it into something his audience likes. This is part of the reason Alec’s decided that laced pantyhose is a natural next step in his… career. The other reason being that for this gig, his boss requested him rather than anyone else on the grounds that he’s a “pretty boy”, which sure isn’t news to Alec. He’d always been more delicate-looking than buff, not exactly lacking physical strength but never really looking it, especially standing beside somebody like Jace. Perhaps comparing himself to Jace is unfair, though, since his brother after all works full-time in a gym… then again, Alec’s job is a work-out, as well. Only a different kind.

Having paid the cab driver, Alec takes a still moment to watch the car drive off, leaving him on a street a little too far uptown than he usually likes to be. His parents doesn’t live uptown any more, but a great deal of their friends still do, and making the mistake of letting one of them see him on the job would be a fairly big one. In an attempt to clear his head, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before walking up to the front door, checking that he’s on time, and ringing the bell.

 

* * *

 

When Alec’s back in a cab again, and back to being just Alec (albeit still wearing now heavily ripped pantyhose under his jeans), he checks his phone to find several text messages from Isabelle - every message in a different tone, it seems. The first one reads calmly that she’s bringing a date to their shared flat and Alec should keep his “judging, passive-aggressive aura” away. Approximately an hour afterwards, she started to send nearly incomprehensible questions, like “what do i do she likes my dress??” and “got close!! Hair smells like strawberries and dreams??”. Just when he’s about to decipher the latest message - sent ten minutes before he got into the cab - his phone starts to vibrate in his hand, a photo covering the screen of his sister’s face with a disturbingly green face mask smeared over it, looking very displeased about having her photo taken.

Alec laughs as he answers the call. “Izzy…?”

His sister’s voice is a very intense whisper. “ _ Alec! _ Thank  _ god _ you answered, I’m  _ freaking out _ , you gotta help me!”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about or even doing,” he admits, unable to keep the laughter away from his voice as Izzy starts to explain her situation.

“It’s  _ the girl _ , she’s in the flat! With me! Right now!  _ It’s a date _ , and she’s so, so pretty I want to punch myself, but I can’t, because it will bruise and she will probably want to take a look at it and if she touches me again I will  _ die _ .” She’s takes a moment to breathe, and then adds in a pathetically whiny voice, “she’s  _ so pretty _ , Alec.”

“Are you in danger? It sounds like you’re threatened by somebody,” Alec points out. “You haven’t been nervous about a date since sixth grade.”

“I wasn’t nervous then,” Izzy hisses. “I just tried to be to get him to like me. I’ve  _ never _ been nervous about a date,  _ except now _ , so please, big brother, help me.” She pauses. “Wait, where are you? You’re not driving and talking on the phone, are you, because--”

“No, I’m in a cab. Been… at a party.” He grimaces at his lack of imagination, but Izzy doesn’t seem to think it’s weird. That’s what he gets for pretending he goes to college parties all the time, when he’s actually working. His sister thinks he’s an average person. Could be worse.

“It’s only ten,” she says, a little louder than her initial whisper. “Did you not have fun?” She makes a small gasping noise. “Were they mean?”

Alec sighs heavily and audibly. “No,  _ mom _ , they weren’t  _ mean _ . I just felt like going home.” He remembers Izzy’s first, terrifyingly sweet message, and adds quickly, “but I’m not. I’m staying away from home. Right?”

“No-no-no! Alec, you have to come home!” She’s back to whispering. “I’ve been hiding out in the bathroom and I have to get out now or she’ll think I’m sick or insane -”

“Which you’re not,” Alec fills in. “Hiding in your own bathroom while your date, who you think is incredibly attractive, stands in your apartment waiting for you to come out. It’s not insane.”

She ignores him and his sarcastic tone. “- so I have to go now. Come home, though. Save me before I do something stupid or pathetic or - god help us - something Jace would do.” She hangs up without saying goodbye, catching Alec a bit off-guard, but he’s smiling at her last words. Albeit managing to seduce a remarkable number of girls on a near-daily basis, Jace has never, to Alec or Izzy’s knowledge, used socially acceptable, or even nice, methods for doing so. The closest he ever seems to come to sounding nice is the incredibly cheesy lines he sometimes uses, which the Lightwood siblings only knew of because he would sometimes quote himself, finding his pick-up tactics to be beyond witty. Alec and Izzy often find that it’s easier to let him continue to think this, or Jace will start asking them a bunch of questions that all clearly come directly from a source of pretty shitty self-esteem. Jace’s self esteem is, Izzy has said on multiple occasions, for Jace to consider only when in the company of trained professionals, and never friends, lest those friends would stop being just that.

The door to their flat is unlocked when Alec comes home, and he has to wonder exactly how much of a mess Izzy is to have neglected to lock their front door so close to the campus, where anyone walking past can just walk in at any given time. Going in, there’s not a single trace of the panic he heard on the phone only a few minutes earlier - the interior is so undeniably clean, he can’t remember it ever looking like this previously, even before they moved in. There’s a soft scent in the air, something smelling of warmth and comfort, somehow, something edible.

“Izzy…?”, Alec manages carefully, looking around as he locks the door after himself. Walking slowly, he notices more peculiar things, like lit candles on every single conceivable surface, explaining the unusually high temperature… he hopes.

“Izzy, have you been baking…?” The smell becomes stronger as he gets closer to the kitchen, and it’s some type of bread-y thing, he realises. As he bends down to look into the lit up oven, he suddenly hears the first noise since he walked in - a sharp intake of breath, followed by what must be a giggle, or at least a stifled one. Alec sighs deeply, the reality of the situation starting to dawn upon him - his sister, true to form, is playing a prank on him, most likely not alone, as the near excessive giggling would suggest. As he gets closer to Izzy’s bedroom, the noises get unsurprisingly louder, and with great displeasure, Alec stops in front of the bedroom door and clears his throat  _ quite _ audibly. Instantly, the giggling stops. He pushes down the door handle, exasperated.

“Alright, you got me. Kind of, but not really…”, he begins as the door opens, but he doesn’t finish. A knee-jerk reaction he’s not needed to use before makes him shut the door and pace backwards quickly, eyelids pressed closed. The sight his eyes have been exposed to is too much. Should he wash them with soap? Bleach, perhaps? Acid?

He hears a few muffled curses, shuffling noises, and the door to Izzy’s bedroom opens again, unlike Alec’s eyes. He steps back further, hands protecting him. “Nope, I don’t need more of that, I got a pretty good preview,” he rambles, and suddenly, his head is hit hard by something. He opens one eye to see that Izzy stands right in front of him with a rolled-up magazine in her hand - the weapon of choice, apparently.

“Listen,  _ big brother _ ,” she says, her tone a familiarly threatening whisper rather than the near-pathetic-sounding kind from their phone call. Alec can’t help but see that she’s got a silk robe on, covering what his mind’s eye still can’t unsee. He cringes visibly, and gets another smack on the head.

“Are you  _ stupid _ ?” she hisses. “I didn’t answer you when you got home, didn’t that give you  _ some _ clue to what I was doing?”

“I-- I don’t know…?” Alec touches the part of his head that she smacked. “I thought you were trying to pull a prank on me, what with the phone call and the really weird texts and…”

“ _ Lower your voice, she’s _ …” Izzy’s voice gets lower and lower for every word, until eventually she only mouths the words  _ in there _ , pointing wildly at the door behind her. 

“ _ I know _ ,” Alec whispers almost soundlessly, gesturing more than he’s making sounds. “ _ I saw her! All of her! _ ” He makes a very unpleasant grimace, and Izzy looks like she’s about to slap him with the paper again. Then she looks down at her feet for a moment, clearly calming down quite a bit before looking back at Alec, now attempting very unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

“So…,” she says. “What did you think?”

Alec wrinkles his eyebrows in question, and Izzy jerks her head in the direction of her room.

“She’s  _ really _ pretty, right?” she says.

With an eye-roll, Alec turns and walks to his own bedroom, ready to ask the internet if he should use cleaning bleach or hair dye bleach for his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

To make up for her brother’s traumatising arrival the previous night, Izzy wakes him up with a tower of homemade pancakes in the morning. At 8 AM, which is a bit early for Alec on a Saturday, but seeing that his sister’s making such a wholehearted effort of apologising, he agrees to have breakfast with her, knowing full well that she’ll spend most of it reminiscing about the night she had.

Alec has only nearly taken a seat around the small kitchen island when Izzy decides smalltalk about how well they slept isn’t sufficiently interesting any more.

“Let’s instead talk about how we  _ didn’t  _ sleep,” she says, her viciously witty lips forming an incredibly annoying smile. Alec barely suppresses a sigh as she goes on uninterrupted. “So I was in the bathroom,  _ freaking out _ because the date was going so badly, I couldn’t believe it. I had made a  _ pie _ , Alec! When did I last bake a pie?!”

Already having stuffed pancakes in his mouth, not expecting to have to participate verbally in this conversation, Alec just makes a muffled sound and shrugs.

“Exactly,” Izzy says. “I was  _ nervous _ . Anyway, we had dinner and everything and it occurred to me that… what if she didn’t know it was a date? Which, you know, would mean it wasn’t. I never said ‘hi, Clary, I want to have a non-platonic date with you this weekend. One of those lesbianesque ones. You in?’”

Alec chokes a little on the food in his mouth, trying to discreetly hide this, but Izzy doesn’t notice, or she doesn’t care enough to pause.

“I was just… I can’t even remember how I asked her, you know? She’s really…” She looks at a spot seemingly slightly above Alec’s face, dreamingly like she’s remembering every freckle on Clary Fray’s face. Which Alec doesn’t doubt she is, honestly. “She’s what songs are written about, you know?”

“No,” Alec says clumsily, still eating. Izzy takes note of this, reaches for one of the neatly cleaned strawberries on his plate and carefully, but with determination, pushes it into Alec’s already overfilled mouth. Like an apple into the mouth of a Christmas pig. He wouldn’t put it beyond her to have meant it that way, either.

“This conversation is about tits, and if you don’t like that, then make your own damn pancakes,” Izzy says in a very Lightwood-ish indoor voice. “Anyway… where was I? Her breasts.” She sighs dreamily. “Anyway, long story short, I was all nervous about how straight she probably was and how I hadn’t realised, and then she kissed me. Right on the mouth.”

There’s a pause as Alec swallows his mouthful - strawberry included - and he says, “a fellow…” he sighs as he uses her own expression, “bi butterfly?”

Izzy’s eyes gleam at the wording, but she shrugs in reply. “Don’t know. Didn’t really seem to matter, honestly. I mean…” She raises her eyebrows meaningly and wiggles them until Alec feels like throwing up. “I got some.”

“Saying things like that doesn’t fit you,” Alec points out.

Izzy gives a low chuckle, takes a deep chug of her coffee and, exhaling, says, “I don’t care.”

Even as they continue to bicker and tease each other about Izzy’s crush and Alec’s lack of timing, Alec can’t help but to look at his sister in wonderment. The Isabelle he’s having breakfast with now is so different from any other version of her he’s seen for the past, well, 18 years. She seems so… happy. Not that she’s seemed  _ un _ happy to him before, it’s just something extra to how she laughs, how she moves and talks. Alec suddenly finds himself feeling sort of empty because of this. Has his sister, who is two years younger than him, found more fulfillment in her life than he has? What’s  _ his life _ missing?

“Alec?”

Is it getting too much, with college and-- work? Maybe he should get a regular job, one that he doesn’t have to be so secretive about… What would he even work with? At a law office? His mum has offered him to work for her part-time, but it’s either because he wouldn’t feel independent enough working under his mother, or it’s just because he doesn’t want to work in a law office yet if he doesn’t have to. Does he even want to study law, honestly...?

“ _ Alec? _ ”

He looks up at Izzy. Maybe he should just tell her about his job. Have somebody else know about it too, so it doesn’t feel so… secretive. He  _ has _ started to feel some pressure about it.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re about to have a stroke…” Her voice is half-humoristic, half-concerned, and Alec shakes his head. Then he nods, paradoxically.

“No. I mean, yeah, I’m okay, little sister.” The last two words come along without him meaning it, something he used to say when they were much younger.  _ It’s okay, big brother _ , she’d say, and he’d tell her,  _ I’m okay, little sister _ . They hadn’t had that exchange in years, and it’s not Alec’s intention to reference it either. All humour seems to vanish from Izzy’s face.

“What’s wrong, Alec?” she asks.

He should just tell her… she’ll be fine with it, surely? Besides, she’s always saying how he never tells her about his personal life. This would be  _ very _ personal.

“Nothing, I promise,” Alec assures her, managing a smile. “I just ate too much, I think.” He laughs, but it doesn’t sound all that honest. Izzy seems a tad less worried, but still looks at him with suspicion.

“Is this about…” She pauses, eyes squinted and directed at Alec. “That party?”

“What party?” Alec asks, knowing full well which one she means.

“The one you went to last night,” Izzy clarifies. “I didn’t wanna say anything, because you were in such a hurry and then you walked in on me and Clary, but…” She squints with more intensity, somehow. “You didn’t go to a party, did you?”

Alec scoffs. “What,” he says, scoffing some more. “That’s preposterous.” He pauses, looks at her, then scoffs a third time, for good measure.

“You’ve never used the word ‘preposterous’ in your entire life.”

“I use it all the time. In school. It’s a law word.”

“I think it’s a word used by the crew of the Titanic. I think only really old pipe-smoking mustachioed men use that word.”

Alec swallows deeply. “Shut up.”

“You never went to any party,” Izzy continues, “because you were with a  _ guy _ .”

Alec pauses, not expecting this. On a regular basis, he’s terrified by his sister’s intellect, and he can’t recall when last she’s been wrong about something. Therefore, her aim falling so tragically far off, he’s a bit taken aback. Then he says, “yeah. You got me.”

Izzy nods with pursed lips, then, with a deep breath, leans across the table and takes Alec’s hands in her own. With an intense stare, she asks, “is it Jace?”

Alec throws a pancake in her face and leaves before she manages to bully him further.

 

* * *

 

 

After having followed his pretty regular schedule, leading up to studying before lunch  _ and, _ right when the clock strikes 12, falling asleep with his head in a textbook, Alec gets a new gig. At first, in his newly awakened state, he looks at the text message on his phone’s screen and deciphers the words “Sat 5PM club party”. It’s not until he’s standing with a foamed-up toothbrush in his mouth, ready to call out to Izzy that he’s skipping lunch, that he realises the message has the date of the  _ next _ Saturday. His mouth manages to make a very unattractive sound as he lets his toothbrushing hand fall limply onto the bathroom sink in front of him. He stares back at his own reflection for a while. The toothpaste radius is off the charts, the white cream spread out messily all over his lips and gathered in the corners of his mouth. Further up, he has still-hardened strings of hair stretching for his eyes and brows but not quite reaching, the entire ‘do in need of some serious washing. The night before, he only went to his room, changed and threw his stripping clothes into his Top Secret laundry basket he has stuffed in his closet, then promptly fell asleep on top of the bed, dressed only in boxers.

To celebrate his newfound free time, Alec decides to continue studying (sleeping) until lunch. Unfortunately, he’s only managed to lie back down on his bed before he’s disturbed - again. By his phone - again. He sees his own message - one simply replying to the initial one, confirming he’ll take the gig - disappear as a new, far longer text covers his screen, forcing him to scroll so far, he doubts he even wants to read it any more. Well at the top of the message, he starts reading.

_ ‘Dear entertainers, _ ’ it begins, more formal than Alec’s used to. Mostly, while at the job, he’s greeted by party guests with a determined slap on his ass and sometimes just being referred to as ‘the stripper’, like that’s his name. Not that  _ Artemis _ is his actual name, either… Point is, in Alec’s experience, people aren’t so respectful towards people in his own business. Only these two first words make him react somewhat, perhaps emphasising just how  _ not _ ready he is for the rest of it.

‘ _ I’m throwing a great - dare I say,  _ grand _ \- party, to which you, as entertainers _ ,’ - that word again. Alec’s starting to feel sort of important, really, ‘ _ have been subsequently invited. I trust the details have been exchanged between you and your employer, so here follows what I want to tell you personally. Consider it an addition to the job description. _ ’

Next follows what’s taking up the larger part of the message space - a long list of various things of different purposes and… different levels of abstraction. For instance, one point calls for any dancer with hair “hazelnut brown or darker” should attempt to add “at least a few highlights” to it; another says for everyone to bring “a sexy mood”  _ and _ a money-saving water bottle (‘ _ It’s important _ ,’ the host writes, ‘ _ to stay hydrated - the guests aren’t the only ones who get thirsty. _ ’) The things that don’t leave Alec mildly confused are things that makes him laugh, even as he sits by himself in bed, leading him to feel embarrassed about how stupid he must look. When he finishes the list, he knows he has some shopping to do, even though he already owns a remarkable number of the things asked for, including at least five outfits for dancing and his consent to having glitter thrown on him at irregular intervals. He’s already grabbing for a notebook and a pen to start writing down what he needs to get for the gig, when he reads the signature at the end of the message. Initially, he read it when he first got the message, but it’s only now that his eyes seem to travel across every letter with a thoroughness he never knew he had.

_ Magnus Bane. _

It sounds nothing like any name he’s ever heard. Maybe from out of a fairytale, or something exotically European. Already, Alec’s mind starts to try forming a picture of who this  _ Magnus Bane _ can be, but his imagination starts contradicting itself rather quickly. All he knows is it sounds… magical.

 

* * *

 

 

Throughout the week, Alec manages to gather all the concrete things on Magnus Bane’s list, such as clothes, accessories, make-up as well as a water bottle, in case that would come up somehow. Alec has gotten the impression that this gig is a  _ big deal _ , or at least the party is, and he decides he’d rather lose 5 dollars on a mediocre water bottle than to be caught without one in case the host would ask. However stupid that may sound, Alec wants to be completely prepared, as for anything he really does in life - it’s just good to be. Better safe than sorry, and all that.

Which, of course, means that he also has his alibi for Izzy - this isn’t in his control in the same way as purchasing his outfits, since it sort of… just happens on its own. Ever since their pancake breakfast, Izzy seems very content with her newly gathered “info” on Alec’s personal life. It’s clear that she’s waited for years to hear that Alec’s dating somebody - or even  _ meeting _ other guys. The trouble with this is, she doesn’t seem to be able to keep her mouth shut about it, as she brings it up every other time they happen to be in the same room. Which is fairly often, seeing as they  _ live together _ .

“How’s it going? Do you like him? Is he, you know, second date material? Did you tell him you do archery?”

“I don’t do archery any more, Izzy,” Alec mutters as she tries - and succeeds - to keep up with him, the loud clacking of her high heels driving him a little crazy.

“What?” The clacking stops momentarily, and Alec sighs before stopping, too. “When did you stop?”

He shrugs, his eyes straining to be rolled at how ridiculous it is that he has to  _ share _ . It’s boring. “Last year. Before finals.”

Izzy’s mouth falls open, but she continues walking in the same eager pace as before, albeit now it may be more  _ intense _ instead of eager. “You really tell me  _ nothing _ ,” she complains. “And the only thing I know about the guy you’re dating is that he’s a guy… I’m  _ guessing _ .”

“It’s a guy,” Alec confirms, not interested in involving his sexual orientation in this conversation. As if there even is  _ somebody _ he’s dating to begin with.

“Alright, so that’s it,” Izzy says, almost with a melodrama to her tone. “That’s all I know.”

“That’s right.” Alec smirks a little, and gets a rough shove from his sister.

“What if I wanted to have him over for dinner?”

Alec stifles a snort.  _ Almost _ stifles it. Okay, he snorts, quite loudly. “Oh, yeah, Izzy. For what, take-out?”

“I cook,” Izzy tells him, but it sounds very ill-convincing.

“Okay.” Alec snorts again. “Let’s review your cooking: this weekend. Once to…” he makes a gesture showing he’s no idea what her life is even about, “do whatever with that ginger lady you brought home, and another time to apologise for traumatising me. Which you didn’t even  _ do _ .”

Izzy doesn’t have a reply to that.

Alec sighs heavily. “ _ Anyway _ ,” he says, “if it interests you, I’ll be home late on Saturday.”

His sister looks up at him with positively  _ shining _ eyes. “Is it the mystery man?”

“Sure,” Alec says. “So I’ll be home around two, I think.”

There’s a brief pause, where only the clacking of Izzy’s shoes echo around them in the corridor. Alec feels blessed that she doesn’t have a follow-up question to his statement, doesn’t have something inquisitive to ask that would just make him dig himself deeper in the pit of lies he’s created. And then:

“Have you kissed yet?”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? Did you not like it? Tell me so I can improve or change (or blush)!


End file.
